Donald Trump indicted for trying to overthrow the US government 

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, August 3rd, 2023 - 30 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, politicans, us politics - Tags:

The question the citizens of the United States will have to ask shortly is not merely how on earth a person like this is a viable candidate for president.

The question is really: how could the United States enable a sitting President to carry out this scale of crime?

Let’s just summarise what Donald J Trump is up for already:

  • 34 felony counts in the New York state “hush money” case with Stormy Daniels
  • 40 felony counts in the Florida for stealing and retaining and covering up the theft of state-secret documents
  • 4 felony counts for conduct while he was president to void votes and retain the power of the presidency

Also he is now a confirmed rapist and lost in a civil case and had to pay the complainant millions of dollars.

On the 4 counts of conspiracy while he was president he will be arraigned this week:

  • Obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
  • Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
  • Conspiracy to defraud the United States
  • Conspiracy against rights

Watch the wording of the last one, because it comes out of Section 241 of the United States Code:

“Of two or more persons conspire to injure, opporess, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

This one was enacted by Congress out of the Civil War, going way back to enable Federal agents to go after the Ku Klux Klan who were in full domestic terror mode to suppress the right of black people to vote. It was a law against terrorists suppressing votes.

That kind of origin should send a chill of resonance to what Trump as a hard right leader sought to do.

All four felony counts are to do with conduct by Trump as the sitting president at the time.

That’s new territory for the United States. It’s not like the Muller report which was mostly about the fistfights you gotta do to win the most powerful job in the planet.

All four felonies start on November 14th which is the day Prosecutors say Trump knew he had lost the election. That gets to intent.

Two charges then end on January 7th 2021, which is the day after the attack on Congress.

Two charges end on January 20th 2021, which is the actual day of the inauguration of President Biden.

Two further useful things out of this. We now know that the Justice Department will bring charges against a past President about crimes committed while they were president. Once they have left office there is no executive immunity necessarily, ever again.

The second is that the Justice Department recognises that Donald J Trump conspired to overthrow the government by force.

That puts the actions of Donald J Trump on a par with any other coup plotter from Niger or Fiji or Myanmar. That’s a new step for the United States since Lincoln.

The opening salvo of the indictment really gets to this:

The defendant Donald J Trump was the 45th president of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months from election day on November 3rd 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.

But the defendant repeatedly and widely disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.

The defendant had a right like every American to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in state or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures.  … His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

Shortly after election day the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies …”

and then lays out how all of them taken together attack a bedrock function of the United States government to gather and certify and apply the results of voting in elections.

The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”

I am particularly happy that co-conspirator four is highly likely to be Geoffrey Clark who was a high ranking official inside the Department of Justice at the time who was prepared to work as a public servant to greatly assist in overthrowing the elected government. That’s your Deep State in operation there for the hard right.

I am also happy that all but one of the co-conspirators are lawyers, whose profession usually shields them from indictment from prosecution of crimes. They are not named in the indictment. But they can keep that cloud of ignominy over them for the rest of their natural lives, and perpetual shame for a lawyer is enough for the most part.

The full text of the charges is here.

Just for fun you can read the full text of the documents-case indictments here.

I’m not going to announce vindication for the Democrats after those long January 6th hearings, or confidence in the US judicial system, or anything like that.

Too early.

I’m just going to enjoy the Republicans tearing each other apart trying to defend or defrock their best politician this century. In the months to come all the evidence will radiate outwards into society as each of the pre-trial hearings and manoeuvers shine their specific spotlights.

And of course there are more charges to come from the state of Georgia.

And the more Trump appeals to each layer of the court into 2024, the more voters he will turn away in disgust.

And at that point, only at that point, will they be able to answer the question I put to begin with.

30 comments on “Donald Trump indicted for trying to overthrow the US government  ”

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  1. Sanctuary 1
    3 August 2023 at 9:24 am

    Trump is running to stay out prison, but if he does win his supporters are planning an authoritarian US that would effectively end democracy and replace it with strongman rule with the theory of the “unitary executive” – https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/donald-trumps-plan-to-make-the-presidency-more-like-a-kingship

    The most worrying thing is Trump is now the GOP presidential candidate forever, until he either dies ro finally wins and becomes an unhinged dictator.

  2. Blazer 2
    3 August 2023 at 9:29 am

    Out of over 330million people in the U.S.A,the best presidential candidates they can come up with are Donald Trump and Joe Biden,both serial liars.

    I doubt Biden will make it till Xmas with the current revelations re his family relationships and business dealings.

    Ones a crooked businessman trying to be a politician,and the other is a crooked politician,trying to be a…businessman.

  3. SPC 3
    3 August 2023 at 10:00 am

    Given what we know about Trump before and after his candidacy in 2016 (and he won anyway), it's not a surprise that he is still favoured for the GOP 2024 candidate nomination.

    Trump has always represented himself as a winner – he's a braggard and a bully and he proffers to the high school diploma America association with success as part of team Trump. They hand him money like they do to televangelists to get the brand of Godpastor. It's the ultimate in American mammon, an era of such inequality that the ordinary folk worship the boss as some sort of King, the serfs of Russia saw the Tsar in the same way – they were great because the Tsar was great – wearing the MAGA team cap. This is why so many in the GOP saw Team Trump and Team Putin as synonymous – new world western and old world eastern strongmen of the white race nation. Fascist as. It's post Weimar Republic stuff (and it's going on in Israel too, if more as a cultural divide/struggle for power over national identity).

  4. Mike the Lefty 4
    3 August 2023 at 10:05 am

    It's a pity the authorities can't add an additional charge of Trump being an insult to the intelligence of sentient life on the planet Earth.

  5. roy cartland 5
    3 August 2023 at 11:24 am

    A useful analysis I read was that Trump isn't a political leader, but a religious leader. His followers do not want or need 'evidence'. They do not want facts or realism or reason. They've been sold a fascist utopia, and they're damn-well gon' geddit!

    (Incidentally, the same is often said about Bernie Sanders – knows his policies don't work, but says them anyway. I'd dispute this, as they don't work within the current system. It's not the same as them not working at all.)

    • Tricledrown 5.1
      5 August 2023 at 9:49 am

      Funny you should say that Trump used to go to church as a child Norman Vincent Peel was the pastor at that church. Trump models his speech on peels evangelical Narcissistic religious diatribe also widespread especially in the poorer states Trump plays them and they follow like psychophatic lemmings no matter how much of a fornicator ,liar corrupt businessman and politician.Peel telling lies about some imaginary friend. Trump lying every time he opens his mouth with his evangelical like speeches/lying Rants.Narcissism is wide spread in America.Hollywood promotes the misogyny that males are superior.That they know all the answers and are better than everyone else

  6. Phillip ure 6
    3 August 2023 at 12:17 pm

    I'm calling b.s. on your sanders claim..

    Sanders is no radical..he is just arguing the tenets of democratic socialism..

    .. basic.. common..sense..

    Arguing for what is already the norm in countries embracing progressive ideals/legislation…

    Sanders would be comfortable in the company of our greens/tmp…

    I remember being quite surprised to see on a global political ideology chart/spectrum..that the democrat party in u.s. is more right-wing than our tories…

  7. newsense 7
    3 August 2023 at 12:18 pm

    A news photograph captured the moment Fanone was enveloped by the mob. He is surrounded by heaving bodies, his face grimacing in fear. A rioter is beating him with the pole of a “Blue Lives Matter” flag – meant to signify support for law enforcement.

    The impressive hypocrisy of the Republican Party. This man is now their enemy because he got beat up.

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/16/devoid-of-shame-january-6-cop-michael-fanone-on-trumps-republican-party

  8. Ad 8
    3 August 2023 at 12:33 pm

    Would make sense for Trumps team to use the First amendment on freedom of expression – including political expression – to head fast for the Supreme Court.

    Presumably DoJ have already gamed this out to a satisfactory conclusion.

    • Dennis Frank 8.1
      3 August 2023 at 12:52 pm

      A gamble but you could easily be right. Buying a judge is trad 19th century but Trump seems to think it still works as operational technique. Problem is judges don't necessarily stay bought. Even a conservative judge may be conscience-driven rather than tribal. Principled-conservatives like George Will are rare nowadays in US politics but may not be a dying breed.

      • Ad 8.1.1
        3 August 2023 at 1:58 pm

        They would have to rule that Section 241 as unconstitutional against this Amendment.

        The magic of the Prosecutor using a just-past-Civil War law is that it would overturn 180 years of precedent from Lincoln himself.

        Even Originalist Supreme Court judges would pause at that point.

        • Dennis Frank 8.1.1.1
          3 August 2023 at 2:26 pm

          Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=section+241+us+constitution

          That's the gospel according to Google. Is it incompatible with the first amendment? Not obviously, since that is the right of free speech whereas 241 makes threats to anyone exercising their constitutional rights a crime. No rational basis to see the latter contradicting the former, therefore I agree with you.

    • joe90 8.2
      3 August 2023 at 2:35 pm

      Would make sense

      Perhaps not.

      Noah Rosenblum

      @narosenblum

      I don’t know this guy and I’ve been told he’s an attorney, but for what it’s worth this is almost the textbook example I use when I’m teaching folks who *don’t* understand how the First Amendment actually works. (1/6)

      https://twitter.com/narosenblum/status/1686546342116564992

      https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1686546342116564992.html

      • Ad 8.2.1
        3 August 2023 at 3:13 pm

        Exactly their most fruitful course.

        In that context I can't wait to see how the 'conspiracy' framing of the charges holds.

        A Not Guilty on all counts would be tough for DoJ to appeal in the election cycle.

      • SPC 8.2.2
        4 August 2023 at 7:52 am

        The Tucker Carlson defence, no one can or should take what a politician or Fox News show host says seriously. That's free speech …

        But an organised conspiracy is not free speech, nor is an attempt at a cover up.

        • Macro 8.2.2.1
          4 August 2023 at 5:07 pm

          But an organised conspiracy is not free speech, nor is an attempt at a cover up.

          Exactly this is not a trial about Trump and his lies, this is a trial about Trump attempting to Pressure Pence into overturning the election results. This a trial about Trump’s behind the scenes attempt to stay in Power by illegal means. Whatever one may think about the politics of Mike Pence one has to admit to his integrity wrt honouring the Constitution of the US.

          The 45-page indictment shows that Pence was a crucial figure in Jack Smith, the special counsel, being able to bring those charges.

          “Contemporaneous notes” taken by Pence, and referred to in the indictment, document how Trump and his advisers pressured Pence to reject the certification of the election in January, which could have resulted in the House of Representatives handing Trump a second-term in office….

          “The president specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me, to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives, and literally chaos would have ensued.”

  9. adam 9
    3 August 2023 at 4:19 pm

    So when you smash the voice of working people for 140 odd years you get a Class A dick head.

    Wage slaves us all.

    The economic system which produced trump is still in place.

    I say, expect more of the same – if the yanks keep the same economic system.

    And God help us, as the democrats are no help.

    • joe90 9.1
      4 August 2023 at 6:56 pm

      So when you smash the voice of working people for 140 odd years you get a Class A dick head

      Arse. A resentful lumpenbourgeoisie installed tRump.

      /

      Three years have passed since President Trump was elected to office, but many still believe that it was the white working class that created his victory. This argument has been embraced by the media, which has put forward various explanations as to why the white working class supported Trump, including cultural anxiety, rejection of the establishment and fear of losing their status.

      Yet there isn’t much direct evidence that Trump voters were hurting financially, which is generally how “white working class” is interpreted. An earlier TMC post explained how this myth appeared and in what ways it is inaccurate

      […]

      support for Trump was strongest among the locally rich — that is, white voters with incomes that are high for their area,

      […]

      locally rich whites have tended to support Republican candidates in most elections since 2000.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/13/white-trump-voters-are-richer-than-they-appear/

      • adam 9.1.1
        4 August 2023 at 9:14 pm

        You get that working poor White, Black, Hispanic and Latino voters just stayed at home after 8 years of Obama? They did not vote. Mind you like most smart people, they saw Clinton as a smiling corporate killer for hire.

        Run with me repeating the corporate media talking points, if that helps you sleep at night. But you know I'm a little better read than that.

  10. Peter 10
    3 August 2023 at 10:44 pm

    All that stuff about indictments and allegations and accusations? They mean nothing to scores of millions of Americans. It’s a cult.

    The nuttery from the religious quarter is the worst. He can grab as many pussies as he wants, shit all over their Bible and its Commandments and that’s fine.

    He is the perfect American in symbolising the worst of the rottenness of society, the modern world and their culture.

  11. Ad 11
    5 August 2023 at 8:50 pm

    This from the Lincoln Project:

    "The nation needs to wake up to the very real threat that Trump will win the presidency. He IS the Republican nominee. He IS leading in the polls against Joe Biden. The MAGA GOP is a cult that no longer cares about the rule of law and wants to send Trump back to the White House. No indictment is going to stop his campaign.

    All Americans must realize the only choice before voters is between a functioning democracy versus a disgraced former President who tried to overthrow the government. There is only one functioning party in America that cares about the rule of law and believes in democracy – and President Joe Biden is its candidate."

    From a lovely selection of post-indictment writings in Salon.com

    https://www.salon.com/2023/08/04/donald-has-lost-control-of-his-own-image/